Football clubs can engineer spectacular performances as well as results. Photograph: Guardian

We have recently heard a lot about match-fixing to enrich betting consortia, but match-fixing to influence a player signing? Yes, that happens too.

In the not so distant past, while I was working as a scout, I went to run the rule over a player from one of the former Soviet republics. This was a youth international who had glowing reviews and looked an exciting prospect. Having heard a lot of good things from local contacts I decided the time was ripe to see him first-hand for myself.

Normally I would travel independently on scouting trips but this time, partly due to the practicalities involved in reaching the game, I got hooked up with the player's club to make arrangements. Once they saw the name of the club I represented I am sure the dollar signs lit up in their consciousness and their plot hatched.

It was rather unusual, though not without precedent, to be offered a lift from the country's airport to the rather remote town where the game was taking place – but to travel with the selling club's president was not to be expected. Add in a fellow passenger with government connections and things began to take on a slightly surreal perspective.

At the ground an English-speaking guy who seemed to be expecting my presence came up trying to talk to me but was shooed away by the president. Despite persistence on his part, we never got to talk and to this day I do not know what he wanted, though I would not be surprised if it was to make me aware of the club's unusual way of impressing scouts – and I doubt my experience was a one-off.

The ground, a typically soulless Soviet-style concrete arena, attracted a mere 200 or so supporters for this end-of-season top league fixture – probably just as well considering what happened next.

The striker I was watching played a blinder. Every ball forward went to him; he danced past defenders and had shot upon shot on goal. When he buried his first one, the president nudged me and said 'Not bad eh?' with a meaningful smile, and he kept on grinning. Although I lost count of how many times the player ended up one on one with the opposing goalkeeper, a total of two goals and two assists – away from home against what, according the league table, was supposedly the stronger side – would impress any scout … except that I was becoming increasingly uneasy about events as the game unfolded.

Defenders 'slipping' to allow him in on goal, pulling out of tackles they easily looked favourites to win and all the play going though him from his team-mates; having watched players and games from a scouting point of view for the best part of the past 20 years, I could sense that this just wasn't normal. I became more and more convinced that the whole performance was just that – a performance, a charade put on for my benefit so that I'd be clamouring to sign him up by half-time.

The more suspicious I became, the more sensitive I became to my companions. I began to notice a few "knowing looks" exchanged between them at every assist and goal from the wunderkind and eventually realised the whole game was a set-up, a showcase for his undoubted skills to shine unreservedly.

The journey back to the capital reinforced my suspicions, as more and more pressure was applied concerning my impressions of the player and the likelihood of an offer coming in. Hospitality for the evening – and not just with the president – was pressed upon me, though, I hasten to add, I declined.

Over the following days contact was incessant, requesting feedback and offering more opportunities to see the player in action. His asking price was around €1m – a significant amount for the country in question and so probably justifying the trouble and expense incurred by the selling club to try to secure his transfer.

The sad thing is that the player in question is undoubtedly talented and we might well have been interested in him, given the opportunity to observe him under normal conditions. The whole set-up, though, once I realised what was going on, was distinctly off-putting and the feeling that I had been taken for a ride left a somewhat bitter taste in the mouth. It was almost a matter of principle not to sign him to show we were not as naive as they believed.

Another discouraging observation from the episode is that leagues in some Eastern European countries such as this may at times seem to be less about true competition and more about being vehicles for outsiders to make money. Manipulation of various kinds seems all too easy to achieve and can only devalue football in those places.

And the player? Still a good prospect – and still with the club …

Tor-Kristian Karlsen is a Norwegian football scout and executive, formerly the chief executive and sporting director at Monaco. He has previously worked as a scout for Grasshoppers, Watford, Bayer Leverkusen, Hannover and Zenit St Petersburg and as sporting director for Fredrikstad.